Minutes. This subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness response and communications will come to order. The subcommittee is meeting today to review our ability to timely and effectively alert and warn the public in the case of an emergency. I want to welcome all witnesses here this morning on issue that is vital to the protection of americans. Effective and reliable alerts and warnings. Numerous disasters and terrorist attacks weve witnessed over the past few months have illustrated that timely communication is critical in emergency situation and ability of critical information, the ability of critical information can help individuals protect themselves from harms way. While some of us grew up in Emergency Alert warnings through television, radio, and im old enough to remember when they told us to get underneath our desks because there was a siren warning, many alerts today are also received through mobile devices, internet and even social media. Considering the Technology Advances that have been made over the past decade, we have High Expectations for what our phones, tablets, and computers can do. At the very least, we expect that the alerts that come through our device s are timely accurate and only sent when necessary. During the chelsey bomb inning 2016, the new York City Emergency Management Department sent out three messages to the chelsey neighborhood. One to alert individuals to shelter in place. Two, once the situation was cleared. And the third one, to solicit the publics help in locating suspect. These messages help protect individuals at a time of uncertainty. It was also reported that they were received far outside the target area. While it is difficult to obtain 100 accuracy, i am glad that the fcc voted last week to require the delivery of alerts to 100 of the target area identified by the alert system with no more than 110th of a mile over shoot. This will help to deter warning fatigue. This will help to determine excuse me, this will help to deter warning fatigue. Unfortunately, there have been erroneous emergency laeralerts to the system which erodes this. We saw an example of this this morning when an alert that was supposed to be a test instead warned multiple locations on the east coast that a tsunami was on its way. In addition, erroneously Emergency Alert issued by the state of hawaii on january 13, 2018 warning residents and visitors of a Ballistic Missile threat threat inbound to hawaii has caused this same concern of ours. Because this incident occurred due to human error, i am interested in hearing about the training, certification to message or originators to ensure proper use of the system. In addition, im interested in knowing more about the safeguards that should have been in place and what, if anything, needs to be done on a federal level to make sure that this never happens again. In addition, to improve the response to terrorist events, i encourage the fcc to take action on multi media alerts, many to warn feedback, and multilingual messages. For example, if new york city Emergency Management was able to send a picture of the suspect directly to recipients phones during the chelsey bombing or if resip enlts were able to respond to the message to report that they saw the chelsey bomber, it may have led to a faster apprehension of the suspect. However, enhancements to the system will be meaningless if basic awareness of how to use the system is not met. Considering the current threat environment in the United States h evidenced by many instances over the past few months, including two terrorist attacks in new york city, one in october, and the other in december of 2017, the accuracy and efficiently of wireless Emergency Alerts is critical. That way when an imminent threat alert is sent americans can act accordingly to protect themselves and their loved ones. I want to thank you all witnesses for being here today to share their expertise with us and look forward to our discussion. The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the subcommittee from new jersey mr. Payne for Opening Statement that he may have. Good morning. And id like to thank chairman donovan for holding this days hearing to assess our nations Warning Systems. Our ability to issue timely alerts and warnings is essentially component of the national prepared he hness. We know when the public is warned early, we can mitigate damage to our communities. Since the federal government began pursuing a National Alert capacity, capability over 50 years ago, we have leveraged advances in technology to push alerts out to a Larger Population for the public more quickly. At the same time, the federal government has undertaken efforts to educate the public about alerts, warnings, and how important it is to respond to them. Ultimately, for the public alerts and the warnings to be effective, the public has to be able to trust them h this is why last months false Ballistic Missile alert in hawaii was so troubling. Im concerned that a single employee was able to issue an alert in the first place and that it took nearly 40 minutes to issue a false alarm message over that platform. That said, false alerts are not limited to hawaii. During a routine test of the Emergency Alert system last month, a false alert announcing an emergency in mars county new jersey interrupted programming for subscribers last month. After Hurricane Irma in florida last year and alert issued in error by state employee directed residents to boil their water, causing hours of confusion. What these incidents have taught us is that we need enhanced training and guidance for state and local governments that are authorized to issue Emergency Alerts through femas integrated public alert Warning System or ipaws. False alerting can be very dangerous, as it can lead to alert apathy, confusion, and unnecessary panic. Nevertheless, we should not allow these incidents to cloud the success of otherwise trustworthy Emergency Alert and Warning Systems. Wireless Emergency Alerts have been partially effective in keeping people out of harms way, whether used to warn of in cleme inclement weather or manmade attack. Today lots of alert messages have been sent. And a lot of these were weather related and instrumental in saving lives during last years unprecedent unprecedented wildfires. But important to know that the Emergency Alerts were also sent after the Boston Marathon bombing and the chelsey bombing in new york to help Law Enforcement catch the terrorist sub suspects. As we look at Warning Systems, id be interested to learn what efforts are under way at the federal, state, and local weather to integrate emerging technologies into emergency warning procedures. I look forward to engaging both panels about what has been working well with ipause and to see where things are needed. With that, i thank the witnesses being here today. And i look forward to your testimony. And i yield back the balance of my time. The gentlemen yields. Other members of the subcommittee are reminded Opening Statements can be submitted for the record. We are pleased to have panels on this topicment on our first panel antwane serves as federal Emergency Management agency. In his capacity he oversees public alert and Warning System. Miss missly lisa fowlkes. She managers the a laerts and warnings, 9 11 systems and Public Service. The full statements will remain on the record. And now welcome for five minute statement. Thank you. My name as mentioned is antwane johnson. On behalf of secretary kneel son and long, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the integrated public alert and Warning System also known as i pause and how it is used to save lives across the country. And effective and timely public alert and Warning System is critical to communicating threats to the public, providing people with guidance, during times of crisis. At fema, we manage our policies and two main components. Warnings and communications from the president in the event of catastrophic emergency through the alert a system, and do emergencies such as those issued last year during hurricanes and wildfires. That allows to send emergency messages to people in their geographic jurisdiction by Emergency Alert system broadcast through radio and tv and cell phones and broadcasts from other interneted services. Today it supports more than 5,000 territorial users. More than 26,000 radio tv and cable connections. 63 cellular carriers gate ways reaching millions of cell phones. Connections to nor Communication Systems. 73 internet vendors that go into the feed. And have done the connection for the exchange of disaster information between our countries canada. Since inception in 2012, there have been more than 3 million messages. These messages cover everything from Natural Disaster or shooting or missing children, help get critical information to the public. For an account manager received an Emergency Alert she evacuated 29 people from soccer dome just before a tornado touched done and ripped the roof off. In 2016, new york city sent a wireless Emergency Alert with electronic wanted poster to identify suspect in bombings in manhattan and new jersey, the suspect captured within hours. Last year they were used by officials to issue warnings in evacuation orders in texas, florida, and california in reespns to hurricanes and wildfires. Significantly since 2012, 47 kidnapped children have been returned to their loved ones after amber alert issued through the system. And members of the community helped Law Enforcement locate perpetrators. In addition to managing the i pause program, fema helps train users and for alerting authorities. Its important to note that while fema manages the i pause system, we rely on our state and local partners to originate communications to their jurisdictions as they are the boots on the ground that are best able to communicate the threats they face and provide specific protective action information related to their area. Following direction from congress in the i pause modernization act of 2015, fema has established a subcommittee through the National Advisory council. It includes members from state and local tribal and territorial governments, Communication Service providers, organizations representing individuals with access and functional needs or limited english and others. This is consulting with experts to consider new and developing technologies that may be beneficial to i pause and the nation. The subcommittee will develop recommendations on matters related to common alert and warning protocols, standards, terminology and operating procedures. Through this subcommittee we are looking at recent uses of the system, including use during the 2007 Natural Disasters as well as the false alert in hawaii to identify Lessons Learned. In addition to this whole review, key areas in which this is focused for the future. First, we have been engaging vendors of i pause Compatible Software to do better integration for consistency and warning messages and collaboration with the part flers we are continuing to promote adoption and use of i pause by Public Safety officials. And we make sure that state and local tribal and government officials are aware of our i pause lab for testing to ensure they can maintain proficiency and understand the proper use of the system. I look forward to continuing to work with congress and provide updates as we move forward with recommendations to continue to modern ooigs t modernize the procedures. Im grateful to opportunity to appear before you and happy to respond to any questions the subcommittee may have at this time. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Johnson. The chair now recognizes miss fowlkes for five minutes. Good morning, chairman donovan, Ranking Member payne, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss our nations Emergency Alert systems. As i recently testified before the u. S. Senate committee on commerce, science and transportation, the false Ballistic Missile warning issued on january 13th by the state of hawaii was unacceptable. It resulted in widespread panic and the extended period it took to correct the error, nearly 40 minutes, compounded the problem. Looking beyond the immediate consequences of the mistake, which were serious in and of themselves, this cry of wolf damaged the credibility of alert messages, which can be dangerous when a real emergency occurs. The commission acted swiftly to open an investigation into the matter. That investigation is ongoing. However, the fcc Public Safety and Homeland Security bureau prepared a preliminary report at the commission haste january 30th open meeting. I have included the presentation made at the open meeting with my written statement for the record. But, briefly, as a bureau reported, it appears that the false alert was a result of two failures. First, simple human error. Second, the state did not have safeguards or process protocols in place to prevent that human error from results in the transmission of a false alert. Moving forward, the commission will focus on ways to prevent this from happening again. Federal, state, and local officials throughout the country need to Work Together to identify any vulnerabilities to false alerts and do what is necessary to fix them. We also must ensure that should a false alert nonetheless occur, a correction is issued promptly in order to minimize confusion. Emergency alerting systems provide timely to the public and we must take all measures to bolster and restore the publics confidence in these systems. The commission is also looking into the recent tsunami issued on january 23 from alaska to better understand how the alert system performed. While the incidents in hawaii and alaska and other places are present in our minds, we must not lose sight of the fact that they have enhanced Public Safety. In the last five years they have used to issue over 35,000 Emergency Alerts. Since we a was first deployed in 2012, the commission has taken steps to enhance alert technology. Just last week, the Commission Vote today require participating wireless providers to deliver alerts in a more geographically precise manner. Specifically, they must deliver we an alerts to the target areas specified by the alert by 2019. This will help channel alerts to americans who need them while reducing over alerting. Equally this will give them the assurance they need to rely on it as a valuable tool to help save lives. The recent order also requires that we an alert messages remain available on a format for wireless devices after receipt or until the consumer chooses to delete the message. And spanish and alert from 90 to 360 characters. These changes will strengthen the system and keep americans safer. We also work to advance the utility of the traditional Emergency Alert system. Just this past december for example the Commission Adopted a new blue alert code that will allow state and local officials to notify the public of threats to Law Enforcement and help apprehend dangerous spus spekts. This can be both over radio and television and we a. Over the past several years they have also worked closely with fema to conduct nationwide tests to accessory liability and effective nils. The most recent test was conducted last september. And our initial Analysis Shows improvements in most areas from the previous year. In closing, we look forward to partnering with Emergency Management professionals, industry and our federal partners, on the alerting capabilities that they need to use to Alert America public Warning Systems with confidence during times of crisis. Thank you. And i look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you, miss fowlkes for your testimony. I now recognize myself five minutes for questions. Scheduling votes somewhere between 11 00 and 11 15 and well try to get through all the testimony. I ask consent from jackson lee sit on our panel with that. Seeing no objection, welcome miss jackson lee. I have a question for both of you. And in any order which youd like to speak about it. As i mentioned in my Opening Statements, vital at the public have confidence in our an alert system they receive from the governmen